Voter rage over economy more likely to hurt the top of GOP ticket
Walter C. Jones
October 13, 2008
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Voters outraged about the economic crisis and the federal government's response are causing
heartburn for Georgia Republicans, but the wave of anger probably won't sweep uniformly down the
ticket, experts say.
John McCain's lead over Barack Obama among likely Peach State voters has shrunk to 3 percent, within the margin of error, and Saxby Chambliss and Jim Martin are even at 45 percent, according to a poll released late Friday by InsiderAdvantage/Poll Position. The survey Thursday of 531 likely voters has a margin of error of 4 percent.
Sue Everhart, chairwoman of the Georgia Republican Party, told stalwarts at a fundraiser Wednesday that she's worried.
"Saxby is in the fight of his life for his Senate seat," she said.
Maybe she was just trying to whip up more donations, because Gov. Sonny Perdue wound up the evening with a more upbeat assessment.
"We think Georgia is safe, but we want to get out and work and add to that total as well," he said.
Who's right: Everhart or Perdue?
Possibly both.
As U.S. House Republican Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, noted earlier at the dinner, Americans blame the GOP for the economic mess by a margin of two to one.
"We've got a lot to handle over the next four weeks," he told the assembled faithful.
Voters are not only angry about the loss of their savings, but also about the multibillion-dollar bailouts the federal government announces almost daily. McCain's positions began slipping in polls around the country when he suspended his campaign to enter negotiations about the makeup of the biggest bailout so far, a $700 billion package.
Ralph Reed, a Republican strategist and unsuccessful candidate for Georgia lieutenant governor, faulted McCain for poor tactics.
"I thought that was a mistake," Reed said during a forum sponsored by the University of Georgia Alumni Society. "It forced him to take ownership for something he didn't really have to own."
Chambliss didn't halt his campaign, but he's still stuck owning his vote for the bailout. And his 20-point lead from the summer has evaporated in polls taken since the crisis began. He says he's not worried.
"I've cast hundreds and hundreds of votes over the last 14 years. I'm sure I'm going to hear about any number of them," he tells reporters. "To say that any one of them is going to cost me the election -- I don't think that's the case."
When the votes are counted, ideology will win out, Chambliss says.
"At the end of the day, Georgia is a very conservative state. Jim Martin is an extremely liberal individual."
Not so fast, says William Boone, a political scientist at Clark Atlanta University. Martin is a moderate, and conservatives are unhappy with Chambliss, especially over the bailout, but also over an energy plan, the farm bill and his original stance on immigration.
Besides, Chambliss adds, polls are never accurate.
Pollsters are indeed facing a major challenge this year, because they have to estimate the turnout by demographic group and weight their raw numbers to reflect it. The results can be wildly off if they guess wrong.
Turnout during the Feb. 5 presidential-preference primary set records, with Democrats outpacing Republicans, notes Georgia Democratic Party spokesman Martin Matheny.
"How do you calculate who's a likely voter in 2008?" he asked. "You've got to take your polls with a grain of salt in regards to results. But you can look at trends."
Two groups are especially tricky: blacks and low-to-moderate income whites. Most observers expect blacks to turn out in record numbers and to vote almost uniformly for Obama.
There has been a surge in new black voter registrations, but typically the newly registered don't wind up at the polls. Early voting reports suggest this year will be different.
Whites have reliably supported Republicans in recent decades, but the financial problems are affecting them in a personal way that's likely to be even more powerful than in 1974, when reaction to the Watergate scandal resulted in the widespread defeat of GOP candidates, Boone said.
Voters want to do something to change the frustration they feel about their finances, he said.
"Maybe voting is one of the things they think they can do, maybe voting Democrat, and even on the down ticket," Boone said.
Matheny, whose job is to spin reporters, admits Democrats will have a tough time picking up any of Georgia's seven GOP congressional seats. The districts are too lopsided.
Still, the two Democratic congressmen who started the election in jeopardy, Jim Marshall in Macon's 8th and John Barrow in Savannah and Augusta's 12th, are looking stronger, he said.
"You don't even hear the 12th being talked about as a marginal district any more," Matheny said. "John Barrow has locked down that seat."
Lopsided districts aren't limited to congressional seats. Still, some legislative races have gotten closer than originally predicted, according to Matheny, and those are due to the state's budget crisis.
He said Democratic candidates are getting traction when talking about Republican control that results in budget cuts that throw 81 war veterans out of their state retirement home while leaving unscathed spending on Perdue's Go Fish Georgia initiative and a horse park slated for the governor's home county.
"There is a lot of frustration, even in areas that two years ago were safe GOP districts," Matheny said.
Still, Republicans will win more than they lose, Boone predicts.
"As this point, I don't think the state is going to change blue or even pink," the professor said.
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